Reconnaissance
by OffCenterFold
Summary: A prequel to Reunion.  Chester is restless the night before Toltus is rededicated as the city of Miguel.  Nothing is more frustrating than building up your own expectations against your own will.  Chester Fanservice, though nothing extreme.


Reconnaissance

Lying in bed, he pushed long fingers through his hair. It needed to be washed. He had been too tired tonight, and that meant getting up even earlier. It still felt as though the dust and grime from cleaning up after all the reconstruction work clung to him. All of them felt it, as much as the Miasma that had once permeated Lone Valley. The work was all done, and tomorrow the new town would be opened. The long ordeal of rebuilding was finally over, and life could get back to something resembling normalcy. He and Cress could go hunting. Cress and Mint would, with any luck, finally get married. He and... Well, if he was honest, he could have almost any girl he wanted at the drop of a bowstring. Except the one, he eventually admitted to himself, who actually understood him.

Sleep was as elusive as ever. He wondered if the faint gleam on the horizon was dawn or his imagination. He sighed in irritation; he was never able to sleep the night before a major event. He had always been easily excitable. That annoyed him too. Why couldn't he be more like Cress? The guy was passionate but so much more mellow unless you hit the right switch. Chester wished, not for the first time that night, he could be more like his friend. Less prone to flying off the handle at the slightest provocation. He tried to convince himself, yet again, that he couldn't help it, but he knew better. Dozens of times, he had been told that if he wanted to change, he could.

He snorted derisively at the thought. Apparently, he didn't want it enough, they said. Maybe it never occurred to them that he'd be calmer if the rest of the world wasn't so full of hostility.

The fact that the world was not actually out to get him never crossed his mind.

Besides that, he thought furiously, there were just SOME PEOPLE in the world who had no respect. Even after five years, thinking of her made him more angry than anything else could. Possibly more so, because why hadn't she come? Why hadn't she helped with the rebuilding? Had she forgotten them after all this time? Was she even alive? What had she done all this time? ...And with whom?

He punched his pillow. It felt good. He did it again.

It still felt good.

He hit it once more. The thrill was beginning to wear off. He did not hit it a fourth time, instead rolling over and trying once more to close his eyes and count baby boars. He was so annoyed, though, that instead of imagining them jumping over a fence, he used them as target practice.

He had a rather large pile of furs in his mind before sleep finally came.

Cress kicked the bedpost yet again. He had long ago learned not to try waking his friend by direct physical contact. He hadn't been sure that the bruise would ever heal from that. "Hey, Chester, wake up!"

An incoherent but definitely displeased mumble made its way out of the pillow, but his friend didn't move. Cress sighed. "Chester, come on, today's the dedication, you have to get up." ~Is being a parent going to be like this?~ he wondered. "Don't make me drag you out of bed myself."

"I'm up, I'm up," Chester grumbled. Sitting up, he stretched; Cress was impressed by how much of him was pure muscle. ~If I was into guys, I'd have no chance against him. Heck, if I didn't have Mint, I'd have no chance around him, either,~ he mused. The thought made him grin.

"What're you so happy about," Chester glared. Cress told him, which only earned him a darker glare. "Ha. You're so funny, Cress." The blond man laughed harder.

Scratching his chest, the archer stood and stretched again. "Well, it's not my fault I could bounce a Gald coin off your pecs," Cress snickered. Chester's expression threatened major physical pain; Cress backed off.

"Go bathe and get dressed. Mint is making breakfast for all of us." Cress left the room, still smirking.

"Sounds good," Chester called after him. Taking up towels, he went to the small hot spring he'd found, during the reconstruction, behind the school which had once been Cress' home. He himself would be moving back to what had once been his own place (and he'd made some changes to it), but Cress would be staying with him until after the wedding in a few months' time. After that, he'd move in with Mint at her place across town. Chester had mixed feelings about that. He wasn't totally keen on living completely alone. Why had she never come...?

He stripped completely in the little shed by the hot spring. He unbound his hair and shook it out; it fell straight down past his knees with a bit of a kink or a wave where it had been tied back. He liked that little wave, and on rare occasions braided his hair at night to get a wavy effect. It never lasted very long, as fine as his hair was, but it looked good in the interim. For now, however, it needed a good washing along with the rest of him. He scrubbed down and climbed into the hot water to soak.

It was a small spring, nothing like that in Japoni, just barely big enough for one person - two, if they were very close friends. But it was quiet and soothing, and Chester let the heat work on the knots in his muscles. ~Okay, maybe Cress is right,~ he mused, looking down at the water. ~I am in pretty good shape. Heh. If there were a time she'd come by, this would be it.~ Unbidden, he was filled with a sense of expectation. She was so infuriating! It would be just like her to come when he was in the bath, reappearing after five years at the most awkward possible time.

Chester grumbled at himself. He was supposed to be relaxing in the hot bath, not stressing out. She would come. Certainly she would have heard about it. The earthquake that had taken place just before the destruction of Toltus (and wasn't that a suspicious coincidence of timing!) would not have been able to stop her from traveling. Even if she had opted not to fly ever again, which he believed unlikely, the bridge had been repaired within six months of their return. She could have easily come.

Why hadn't she come? Despair flooded through him as he heard the distant sounds of practice cease. He had been soaking for an hour. Even so, she was supposed to have come... Blinking away angry tears, Chester held his breath and plunged beneath the surface of the hot spring. His hair floated around him, waving and jumping in the flow of water. It felt nice to have its weight off of his head, and he considered cutting it short.

The thought didn't last long; his hair was Chester's one real vanity. Brushing it out was a pain but it did calm him. He kept in shape not out of concern for his appearance but as a matter of course; it was inherent in his nature and part of his survival. He pushed up through the spring and broke the surface, his hair plastered to his body as the water cascaded away.

~I bet she'd hate to have missed that,~ he thought. ~Grr. I'm not helping myself.~ Dripping, he pulled himself out of the spring and returned to the shed to dry off and don his robe; he wouldn't put on his best clothes until just before the ceremony. ~No sense getting them messed up before the big event.~

"I wish I had your confidence," Cress said as he emerged from the building that would be dedicated as the Albane School of Swordfighting in just a couple of hours.

Chester looked at his friend in confusion.

"To walk around in a robe," Cress clarified. "I mean, I guess I'm in decent shape but if I had a body like yours, I'd be showing it off too."

Chester flushed. "I'm not showing off. I just don't want to ruin my good clothes. You know I'll mess them up if I put them on too soon."

Cress grinned. "Relax. I'm only teasing. But you ARE chiseled, my friend. Seriously, flaunt it. The girls already love you. You've got the whole dark brooding hunk thing going on, and your hair!" Cress pretended to swoon. "Your hair is the shimmering blue of a waterfall reflecting a summer sky!"

"Waterfalls don't reflect."

Cress straightened, sniggering. "Tell that to the girl I heard going on about it in the tavern at Euclid last month. What a ditz. She was hot, but a total ditz." He rolled his eyes. "Do you not realize how popular you are? Why don't you do something about it?"

Chester sighed. "I don't wanna." He wouldn't look at his friend.

"Don't want to do what," Mint asked as she let them in.

"Tell me, Mint. Do you think Chester's hot?"

Mint raised an eyebrow at Cress. "That's a rather loaded question, isn't it?"

"It's okay. I'm not trying to say anything. I'm trying to prove a point."

Mint eyed Chester critically. "Lose the braids and the robe," she smirked.

"Mint! That's not what I meant!" It was Cress' turn to get flustered.

"The braids are just 'til it dries a little. I like the way it waves," Chester tried for nonchalance.

Mint laughed. "And I thought we women were vain! So where'd this come from all of a sudden?"

Cress told her while she served breakfast. Mint had noticed the haunted expression Chester was trying to subvert. She thought she knew what was really bothering the archer, but she wasn't going to bring up the subject and make things worse. An idea began to take form in her mind. She would mention it to them tonight, after the dedication. If the problem was what she thought it was, there was an easy solution. It would just take a little bit of timing. And tomorrow, in fact, would be the perfect day for it, under the circumstances.

It was time for a trip to Lone Valley.


End file.
